


The Finest Words You Ever Said

by Anya (aCrowdOfStars)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aCrowdOfStars/pseuds/Anya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Mycroft needs Sherlock to play the part of his well-cultured and polite younger brother, Sherlock needs access to The Black Museum, it seemed like a mildly fair trade. Four hours with the dullest London had to offer in exchange for days skulking through the minds of England's blackest? Fair enough. He simply didn't expect to see anyone worth a second glance. </p><p>Certainly not a fourth or fifth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Finest Words You Ever Said

“All I ask of you,” Mycroft had said, twirling his umbrella in a disinterested manner, “is one night of pretending to be my wonderful younger brother, capable of all the social obligations his family has requested of him, and I will give you access to the Black Museum. Unquestioned and complete access.”

 Sherlock had stared at him for a solid five minutes, his jaw tensing.

 “And I will pay for your new flat, no questions asked, leaving you to your,” Mycroft’s lip curled, “dalliances with New Scotland Yard.”

 Sherlock kept staring.

 And agreed.

 ==

 His suit, though no more or less confining than the ones he normally wore, felt restrictive under the pointed gazes of Mycroft’s ilk. Sherlock stood to the side, a slowly warming glass of overly sweet and overly dear white wine in his hand, a grin of increasingly rictus style on his face.  Occasionally, someone would approach him, shake his hands, coo their admiration of his brother, pry into his education, training, skills, career, and Sherlock would mutter the appropriately practised responses. He was constantly mindful of Mycroft’s eye on his behavior, which made the night all that more unbearable. He kept himself calm by running through the various items within the Black Museum of which Sherlock merely longed to be in the presence. Every new social climber represented a serial murderer’s skull, or handkerchief, or tooth.

 It wasn’t as effective as he hoped. He attempted to entertain himself by determining how many people in the room were having affairs on their spouses, but it stopped being entertaining once he realized that the real challenge was finding someone who wasn’t stepping out with someone younger/richer/prettier. He drained his glass of wine and motioned for another, debating whether to get just drunk enough to come across as charmingly socially naive, or so obliterated he deduced the menstrual cycle of a duchess from her shoes. He didn’t know which would bother Mycroft more.

 Sherlock raised his head as the waiter with the fresh glass approached, instinctively scanning the crowd. Amongst the garish designer clothes of Mycroft’s peers, the dark red and white of military dress stood out so obviously Sherlock was surprised he hadn’t seen it instantly. It was rather common to see the dress uniform of  a general or two eager for social and political standing amongst the crowd of hanger-ons, but normally, the uniform was stretched over the paunch of a man who’d spent more time at a desk than in front of troops.

 This time, however, the black was smoothed neatly over the firm stomach of a man who still bothered with his physical fitness. Sherlock let his eyes linger over the red lapels before flicking up to the man’s face.  He wasn’t young -- no one had invited him as the token representation of Britain’s overseas presence, depending on youth and naivete to keep his mouth closed to more controversial topics -- but he wasn’t close to being put to pasture. Sandy blond hair, dark blue eyes, and the beginning permanence of laugh lines around his mouth and eyes that managed to strip years away from his appearance rather than add.

 It helped that the man was laughing brightly at whatever the waitress who handed over his drink had said. From across the room, Sherlock was seized with the desire to draw closer, to peer at the man’s stance, shoes, face, coat, to know everything there was to know in the creases of his face, the tilt of his brow. From this distance, all he knew was that the man felt uncomfortable, out of place, slightly tipsy, reluctant to drink further but despairing at spending the evening sober, and exhausted. All this from his government issued cufflinks, and Sherlock was about to move to the way he’d tucked his shirt when they locked eyes.

Panic blossomed in Sherlock’s chest, rising from somewhere he’d tamped down years ago, back during university, back when he misinterpreted Victor Trevor’s friendship for something more and felt the sharp stab of rejection and pity. Desperate to force it down again, Sherlock tore his eyes from the man and attempted to disappear from the room into the fold of social climbers and politicians, harried when he felt a familiar hand grab his elbow. “Where are you going?”

“To piss, if that’s alright,” Sherlock gritted at Mycroft, restraining himself from glancing over his brother’s shoulder. Mycroft only slightly lessened the hold.

“The agreement was four hours of good behavior. You have two left,” he said.

“Well aware, Mycroft.” Sherlock tore his arm out of his brother’s grasp. “Is it good behavior to urinate on one’s self at these parties, or may I go to a loo?”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow before gliding away into the nearest clutch of co-conspirators. Sherlock ducked towards the washrooms to watch clusters of people with too much power for their own good discuss how next to manipulate the world.

“Looks like you hate these things as much as I do,” a voice to his left said, and Sherlock jumped. When he gathered himself enough to turn, he found the military man from before smiling placidly up at him. “Don’t really blame you. Terrible food and conversation, but the free booze is quite nice.” Sherlock continued to stare as the man gave the room another visual sweep. His shoulders were set back, though the left not as tightly as the right, indicating either a persistent or fresh injury. He worried at his lower lip despite his smile and light tone, indicating hidden stress. He clutched his drink tightly in his right hand while keeping his left hand behind his back, clenching and releasing repeatedly. Stress response and nerve damage.

His uniform was finely pressed and well kept, but plainly pulled fresh from deep storage, and the measurements were off by just a little. The man for whom the uniform had been made had been not thinner, but scrawnier. A dress uniform hadn’t been necessary in the years between when it was issued and now. That time had been spent building muscle, toning, shaping someone who had started off average and become fit.  The tan at the edges of the uniform were only visible when the man raised his glass to sip, causing his sleeves to slip, or craned his neck to watch someone particularly impressive passed.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock asked. The man paused mid-sip to turn his face.

“Sorry?”

“You’ve been recently invalided home from the war. Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan. Sorry, how-”

The words came pouring forth, despite the slightly muffled memory of Mycroft’s insistence that Sherlock keep his deductions to himself for four hours attempting to shout him to silence. “Your haircut, the way you hold yourself, says military. You’re tanned, but not above the wrists, which means you’ve been abroad. And of course, your uniform,” Sherlock indicated the man’s body with the hand holding his drink, “is the dress uniform of a commissioned officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps, which means you’re a doctor recently returned from overseas. Considering the desperation for combat experienced and competent doctors overseas, both of which are categories you fit easily considering the amount of medals you wear, you must’ve been invalided home. You have a slight limp when you walk, but no indication of pain while standing here, implying a psychosomatic wound, which means traumatic injury, which was clearly to your left shoulder. You’re attempting to stand at ease, because it is a position you’ve become comfortable in holding, but the pull of scar tissue in your left shoulder creates a slightly bent posture. It means the injury was not only traumatic, but received in an area in which you had to wait a fair amount of time for proper medical treatment, causing further scar tissue than seen in domestic bullet wounds, possibly because the bullet was pulled from the wound by either someone untrained or someone under a great deal of stress. Military dress, doctor sent home early from the war, scar tissue, psychosomatic injuries, all leads to military doctor invalided home from a war zone. Afghanistan or Iraq.”

The man stared at him in such a wide eyed manner that Sherlock turned his head and drowned half his glass, wondering just how far away he’d pushed his chance to see the Black Museum, when a small but awed voice broke through. “That was…” Sherlock tensed. “...amazing.”

 He whipped his head to find a wide smile being directed at him. “That was extraordinary.”

 “You think so?”

 “Of course.” The man frowned slightly at Sherlock’s grimace. “What do people normally say?”

 “Piss off.”

 The man giggled - giggled, with beautiful abandon - into his drink, and pushed out his hand for Sherlock to grab. “Captain - Doctor - John Watson. Not used to giving the civilian title yet, sorry.”

 Bemused, Sherlock took the offered hand. “Just call me John, though,” said John, “Otherwise I’ll get a complex.” He flashed a quick grin.

 “Sherlock Holmes. No title, civilian or otherwise.”

 “Ah, well, we’ve all got our faults.” John took a sip of his wine and winked.

 He was joking.

 With Sherlock.

 “You’ve covered your chest in the masculine equivalent of ostentatious status jewelry. You’ve already got a complex,” Sherlock said, wishing immediately that he hadn’t, unbelievably while unrecognizably furious at his tendency to cover surprise with insults. John glanced down at his chest, and Sherlock braced for the glare, the harshly spat hatred, the dismissal. He got another laugh instead, and he felt heady with the confusion.

 John raised a hand to his chest, touching the metal there. “Alright, you’ve got a point.” He didn’t look offended as he took a sip of his drink, pulling his hand from the physical representations of his accomplishments. “Apparently we’re required to wear them. And I was invited here as a poster boy, so I figured the more compliance, the  best.”

 “Poster boy?”

 John raised his glass to point as discreetly as possible at an MP speaking with Mycroft. “He is close friends with a former commander of mine, and is trying to push some sort of law through about Army pensions.” John frowned. “My commander called in an old favour, and here I am.” He looked resolutely annoyed, and Sherlock wanted to wipe away that look, to coax forward the easy laughter of before. He couldn’t quite understand why he so badly wished to hear John’s recklessly high pitched giggle again, and the promise of continued study was magnificent.

 “He’s speaking to my brother, and you can be assured that it is as horrifically boring as it could possibly be.”

 “Can he do what you did?”

 “Pardon?”

 “Can he look at someone and read their whole story?”

 “Yes, but he doesn’t say it out loud.”

 “Well, then, it must be boring.” John turned to Sherlock and favored him now with a genuine smile, a bright beacon of amusement and camaraderie, and Sherlock couldn’t help but give a pastiche in exchange that began to feel more and more genuine the more John grinned. John’s smile was complimentary and impressed and brilliant and Sherlock had to look away before John noticed the slowly rising flush that threatened to stain his cheeks as it crept up the skin stretched pale across his breastbone.

 It was stupid, of course, to care what some easily influenced military officer thought of the extremely simple talent of observing when everyone else just saw, but Sherlock felt a warm flicker of pride in his chest as John bit his lip but didn’t diminish his smile when Sherlock turned away. They stood in awkward (for Sherlock but not John) silence for at least five minutes before Sherlock suppressed the urge to jump in surprise when John touched his elbow lightly.

 “Tell me all about that waiter.”

 “What, no desire to learn the deepest secrets about Britain’s most powerful?”

 “Let me guess - cheating on their spouse, attempting to appear more wealthy than they are, power hungry, rather incompetent.” Sherlock felt a grin tugging at his lips. “That’s the story of essentially everyone here, except the unmarried ones, who are gay.” He squeezed Sherlock’s elbow and released it abruptly, and if Sherlock hadn’t already obsessively catalogued the color of John’s face, he would never have seen the fleeting blush ripple across the doctor’s face. “The waiter is more interesting, right?” His voice was a little plaintive, a little strained, and Sherlock could barely hear it over the roaring in his ears that had risen at John’s friendly touch.

 “Right. Well, obviously, he’s found a new apartment in Wandsworth,” Sherlock said, succumbing to the desire to bend to put his mouth closer to John’s ear, depending on the guise of being discreet, delight rushing to his fingertips and arches when John curved into the crafted margin of secrecy.

 “Obviously,” John echoed, but with amusement, because it was obvious to no one but Sherlock, and John, for some reason Sherlock couldn’t even begin to calculate, found that fascinating, amusing, worthy.

 “Obviously, due to the newly purchased wallet in his front pocket,” drawled Sherlock as sarcastically as he could, in what he hoped was interpreted as banter, and something wonderful unfurled in his chest when John huffed a laughed and leaned closer, unoffended, eager to hear of the waiter and his hated apartment. At this closed distance, Sherlock could smell John’s economy shampoo, shaving cream, and detergent. As he ducked his head again to explain to John how the hem of a tailor suit could indicate virility, John momentarily let his posture slip just enough to brush the dip between his scapulas against Sherlock’s downturned nose. Something that felt terribly like poison and fireworks scattered its way through Sherlock’s extremities.

He jerked in surprise and looked at John. They stared at each other for a moment, just long enough for Sherlock to begin to wonder what it would be like to lean forward and--

“Tell me about that woman there.”

Sherlock turned to look at the woman John had indicated with a shaky jerk of his left hand. He began to chase away the chaotic thoughts that had threatened to overwhelm him a moment before, began to read the woman’s sins and tragedies in her stockings, when John said, “For now, just tell me about her,” and it was such a whisper that Sherlock could pretend not to hear while showing with every flex of his jaw that he understood perfectly.

 For now.

 Just now.

 

**Author's Note:**

> {Title comes from The Lumineers' 'Dead Sea' which is lovely and you should listen to it}


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